Russian jetliner crash kills 170

Aug. 23, 2006

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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CRASH SITE: Firemen work Tuesday at the crash site of a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 plane en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg. Officials said all 170 people on board, including 45 children, were killed. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CRASH SITE: Firemen work Tuesday at the crash site of a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 plane en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg. Officials said all 170 people on board, including 45 children, were killed. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SUKHA BALKA, Ukraine

A Russian passenger jet crashed during a thunderstorm just minutes after sending a distress signal Tuesday, killing all 170 people on board, including dozens of children.

Emergency officials said preliminary information led them to believe that weather - not terrorism - caused the Pulkovo Airlines' Tu-154 to plummet to the ground in what was the third passenger plane crash involving Russia's aviation industry this year.

"Nobody survived," said Mykhaylo Korsakov, a spokesman for the city of Donetsk's Emergency Situations Ministry.

Ukrainian officials said a storm with high winds, driving rain and lightning was raging through the region at the time. Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova, citing information from her Ukrainian counterparts, said the plane was likely hit by lightning.

Korsakov said the pilot asked to make an emergency landing before disappearing from radar screens at around 2:30 p.m.

The Tu-154 was en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa - a holiday destination popular with families - to St. Petersburg when it ran into trouble. Two minutes after the crew sent a distress signal, it dropped off the radar, said Russian emergency official Yulia Stadnikova.

Residents of Sukha Balka, a village north of Donetsk and some 400 miles east of Kiev, found part of the plane's tail section and still-burning pieces of debris in a swampy field. Television footage showed scorched, smoldering land covered in small pieces of wreckage. Thick white smoke hung over the debris.

Pulkovo Airlines deputy director Anatoly Samoshin said the pilot decided to climb about 3,300 feet to try to get above the storm. But as the plane ascended from 29,500 to 36,000 feet, the pilot sent the first distress signal. Later, the pilot sent two more distress signals, the last from 9,800 feet, he said.

Ukraine Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Igor Krol said a fire broke out at 32,800 feet and the crew decided to try to make an emergency landing.

The crash occurred just two days before the second anniversary of near-simultaneous explosions on two planes over Russia. Those explosions, which killed 90 people, were blamed on Chechen terrorists. Both Russian and Ukrainian officials said nothing indicated Tuesday's incident should be blamed on terrorism.

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